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Hints to the Decipherer 

OF 

"^ Greatest Work 

OF 

Sir Francis Bacon 

Baron of Verulam 
Viscount St. Alban 



Riverbank Laboratories 
Geneva, Illinois 



Hints to the Decipherer 

OF 

The Greatest Work 

OF 

Sir Francis Bacon 

Baron of Verulam 
Viscount St. Alban 



Riverbank Laboratories 
Geneva, Illinois 






Copyright, 1916 
GEORGE FABYAN 






HINTS TO THE DECIPHERER OF THE GREATEST WORK 

OF SIR FRANCIS BACON 

The purpose of the following pages is to show as clearly as may be 
the method to be pursued by the student in deciphering or translating 
the Biliteral Cipher. The first requisite is good eyes; the second, a care- 
ful and observant attitude of mind; the third, much devoted patience. 
(A good reading-glass, preferably oblong in shape, is a highly useful, 
indeed an almost indispensable mechanical adjunct.) 

The first step to be taken is to acquire familiarity with Bacon's 
description of the Biliteral Cipher as first explained by him in the 1623 
edition of his De Augmentis Scientiarum, translated by Gilbert Wats in 
1640 and by James Spedding in 1857; for his explanation there set forth 
and illustrated is the one and only basis of all use of the Biliteral Cipher, 
as that term, is here employed. No departure from the directions he there 
gave is recognized or implied; nor is any essential idea or even explana- 
tion added to what he there set down. It is true that after about 1616 
extra devices and complicating touches seem occasionally to have been 
introduced, as though to baflfle the too confident decipherer and thus to 
make the cipher still more safely obscure; for in the De Augmentis Bacon 
specified, just before explaining the Biliteral Cipher, that two of the 
three "virtues required" in ciphers were "that they be safe, and impos- 
sible to be deciphered; and .... that they be, if possible, such 
as not to raise suspicion."^ 

To simplify the approach to the subject, we may divide the explana- 
tion of the cipher into two parts. We shall describe first the two-letter 
code, or "biliteral alphabet," as Bacon calls it; and then add the supple- 
mentary explanation of how he resorted to the use of letters of two forms 
of type, closely resembling each other yet differing in minute though dis- 
tinct particulars, for the purpose of "infolding" and serving as a vehicle 
for this two-letter code. 

^ Spedding's translation (ed. 1857), Vol. IV, p. 444. 

3 



First, then, the "bihteral alphabet." Bacon's words of explanation 
are these: 

First let all the letters of the alphabet be resolved into transpositions of two letters 
only. For the transposition of two letters through five places will yield thirty-two dif- 
ferences; much more twenty-four, which is the number of letters in our alphabet [since 
i and j, and u and v were then interchangeable ]. 

That is, any two letters (or other symbols, such as circles and squares), 
if arranged in groups of five, can be combined in thirty-two different 
ways; of which the first twenty-four, we may say, can be taken to repre- 
sent respectively the twenty-four letters of the Elizabethan alphabet. 
This "resolving" of "the letters of the alphabet" "into transpositions 
of two letters only" he then makes in specific form, and produces this 
"example of such an alphabet": 

EXAMPLE OF AN ALPHABET IN TWO LETTERS 



A 

aaaaa 


B 

aaaab 


c 

aaaba 


D 

aaabb 


E 
aabaa 


F 

aabab 


G 

aabba 


H 

aabbb 


I 

abaaa 


K 

abaab 


L 

ababa 


M 
ababb 


N 
abbaa 




abbab 


P 

abbba 


Q 

abbbb 


R 
baaaa 


S 
baaab 


T 

baaba 


u 

baabb 


w 

babaa 


X 

babab 


Y 

babba 


Z 

babbb 











This, then, is the two-letter code by which each group of five letters (or 
other symbols of two kinds) can be used to represent one letter of a cipher 
message. This code is first to be thoroughly learned by the decipherer; 
and the best memorizing method is to arrange the groups vertically, so 
as to show their relative likenesses and differences: 



1 Spedding, p. 445. 



CODE FOR THE 


BILITERAL CIPHER 


A 


= 


aaa 


aa 


B 


= 


aaa 


ab 


C 


= 


aaa 


ba 


D 


= 


aaa 


bb 


E 


=: 


aab 


aa 


F 


= 


aab 


ab 


G 


= 


aab 


ba 


H 


= 


aab 


bb 


I, J 


= 


aba 


aa 


K 


= 


aba 


ab 


L 


= 


aba 


ba 


M 


= 


aba 


bb 


N 


= 


abb 


aa 





= 


abb 


ab 


P 


= 


abb 


ba 


Q 


= 


abb 


bb 


R 


= 


baa 


aa 


S 


= 


baa 


ab 


T 


= 


baa 


ba 


u,v 


= 


baa 


bb 


W 


= 


bab 


aa 


X 


=: 


bab 


ab 


Y 


= 


bab 


ba 


Z 


= 


bab 


bb 



This ** methodized'' arrangement makes memorizing easy, because it 
shows systematic Hkenesses in several directions. First, each group of 
fours, as spaced horizontally, is alike in the first three letters of each five. 
Next, the final pair in the A^ B, C, D quartette are in the same combina- 
tion in every other quartette — ^merely repeated each time: 

aa 
ab 
ba 
bb 

And again, if we read down the vertical columns, beginning at the right, 
we get the a, h combination successively to the bottom; in the next col- 
umn, two as alternating with two b's; next, four as and four b*s\ then 
eight as and eight b's; and last, sixteen a's and sixteen ^'s, but stopping, 
of course, with twenty-four. 



Now it seems clear that this code, if used as it stands, would not 
only be cumbersome but also seriously obvious; for since a useful cipher 
must "be, if possible, such as not to raise suspicion," this cipher could 
not possibly avoid suspicion, since it is meaningless except as capable of 
carrying a hidden message. And, more seriously still, it would not be 
difficult to solve or discover, even without a key, by determining, say, 
first the ^'s, then the ^'s, and so on, on the basis of the ratio of alpha- 
betical frequency of occurrence. 

Therefore, doubtless, Bacon superposed upon this two-letter code the 
further complication of a **bi-formed alphabet," in which every letter 
has two distinguishable forms — ''any forms," says he, *'that you find 
convenient."^ By such means, then, the a-b, or two-letter code will drop 
quite out of sight, and thus remove the disadvantage of suspicion and 
obviousness, since the external or "infolding" matter will have a com- 
plete sense of its own and seem entirely honest and innocent — or even 
partisan in the opposite direction; and the risk of decipherment will be 
almost nil, with the a-b code known only to the correspondents and not 
even suspected by the casual reader. That the substance and meaning 
of the "external" message may be anything, quite regardless of the inner 
message — in a different language, indeed — is helpfully illustrated by 
Bacon, when he makes the external message "Do not go till I come" 
spell in cipher the message "Fly."^ 

This brings us, then, to our last step: the way of combining the two- 
letter or biliteral code and the "bi-formed" alphabet — of using the bilit- 
eral code within the bi-formed alphabet in the practice of the Biliteral Cipher. 
The method is this: one of the two forms of each letter is arbitrarily called 
the "(2-form," and the other the "Worm"; and these — regardless of what 
the letter may be, or the word — are used in such a-b combinations as to 
spell in the two-letter code the concealed message desired. So, in "Do 
not go till I come,"^ the first two letters are printed in the "^^-form," 
the third in the "Z?-form," the fourth in the "<2-form," the fifth in the 
"Worm" of the type used — reading aabab— -which in the two-letter code 
stands for F; the next five letters distinguished thus according to form 
spell the group ababa, standing in the code for L; and the next five, babba, 
standing for Y. This may as easily be written in Latin: Manere te volo 

^Spedding, p. 446. 



catizris saMsmcio oitmwu^'. J/Iiniips^nwif 
0M iiL^ mslfmtcta J% dzin&noii cmjmes:^ 



menu camtinm^ nonrsfiaumc sedfm- 

Figure 1 
From The Advancement of Learning, translated by Gilbert Wats 1640 p. 269. 



donee venero, and be so printed (or written) as to spell the hidden Latin 
message Fuge — or its English equivalent **Fly/' This flexibility is what 
Bacon means by *'the writing of anything by anything"^ — omnia per 



omnia? 



To illustrate his complete device more extensively, Bacon adds a 
longer example, in which he uses a 97-word extract from what he terms 
Cicero's first epistle as the "external" message, and conceals within it 
the word message sent, by means of a Scytale or round-ciphered staff, and 
commonly known as the Spartan message. This specimen of the Biliteral 
Cipher is shown in the earlier editions of the De Augmentis (1623, Latin; 
and 1640, Gilbert Wats' English translation) in script letters of a- and 
Z?-forms (Fig. 1) ; but in Spedding's translation (the 1857 edition) the 
whole is shown with equal clearness in type, by the simple expedient of 
using "modern" italic type for the <2-form letters and ^* old-style" italic 
for the Worm (Fig. 2). 



In all duty or rather piety towards you J satisfy every body except 
myself. Myself I never satisfy. For so great are the services which 
you have rendered me, that seeing you did not rest in your endeavours 
on my behalf till the thing was done, I feel as if life had lost all its 
sweetness, because I cannot do as much in this cause of yours. The 
cccasions are these : Ammonius the Jiing's ambassador openly besieges 
Its with money : the lousiness is carried on through the same creditors 
who zvere employed in it when you were here^ SfC. 

Figure 2 
From The Advancement of Learning, translated by James Spedding, 1857, p. 447. 



It happens, however, that the Biliteral Cipher is most commonly 
found in italic type; and the italic letters of the Elizabethan and Jacobean 
times were strikingly like such bi-formed alphabets in script as that shown 
in Fig. 3, designed by the Spaniard, Francisco Lucas, and published in 1577, 
as well as that in Fig. 4, reproduced from the Wats translation of De 
Augmentis with its <2-forms and Worms indicated. In fact, italic type was 

^ See Spedding, as above, p. 446. 
^ Gilbert Wats translation, p. 268. 



<zAaa hhccddtcffgghh ixjlhnmnnoop 

TV OOH" P 9jQJ{R. S S ' 

TT'vvxxyyzz &^ 

Letra del^nfh (^mefcrmia Tran^ Imms ^n - 
dKadrtd.cAm rOe. c^ . ^D. LXXVIL 






Figure 3 
[Strange's Alphabet, Italics, by Lucas.] 

but these script forms cast in type. Therefore the apprentice decipherer 
can hardly do better than first to study the fine yet dehberate differences 
in these script forms, by way of preparation for distinguishing the later 
italic type forms. 

He will see at once that the two forms of the capitals are generally 
very unlike, but that the two forms of the small letters (lower case) are more 
subtly and delicately distinguished: as in the sharper, more angular ^-forms 
of i, m, n, u, v, and zo. Such differences as show in these letters in the 
little "seriph strokes" where the pen leaves the letter (e. g., i, m, n) 
will be specially useful in training the eye to distinguish between the two 
forms of the italic type letters. In general, the following distinctions 
hold true: 

1. The a-fovm letters are larger, rounder, more upright, and more robust than those 
of the Z?-forms. 

2. In the ^-forrn c's and ^'s the up-stroke from the bottom curves in as though to 
meet the top-stroke; the ^-form stroke points out. 

3. Letters with two or more limbs are squarer, more upright, less angular or sharp 
in the <:?-forms than in the ^-forms. 

4. Of the long-tailed letters, the b-form usually slopes more and has longer flourishes. 



M EicamfUofa 'B't'formed Alphahet. 




ca. 




C.C. 








n, ka.P* a. P> d,i.cb,d.,P* ^, h.(t,f*. 





.MM* 






11, 







Figure 4 
From The Advancement of Learning, translated by Gilbert Wats, 1640, p. 267. 

10 



5. Circular letters, like o and q, are best judged by the slope or slant, which is likely 
to be greater in the ^-form. The slope is of course determined by a line drawn so as to 
bisect the longest diameter of the letter. 

If, for example, we take our Latin sentence, Manere te volo donee 
venero, and its message, Fuge, as they are reproduced from the 1640 edition 

Figure 5 

of Gilbert Wats (Fig. 5), and compare the letters of both forms here 
with those in Fig. 3, we should notice such differences as these: 

Biformed Alphabet Biliteral Alphabet Result 

M — Straight a ^ 

a — Straight, round a f 

n —Sloping, sharp b /aabab^F 

e — Straight, round a i 



r — Sloping, sharp b 

a V b a a b b = U ( 

Fuge — ''''Y\y 



e — Greek f b ) 



t & e — Straight, round aa >-baabb = U 

V o —Pointed, flourished b b ) 

1 o — Upright, unflourished a a 

d o — Sloping, flourish, loop bb ]>-aabba = G 

n — Upright, round a 

e c — Upright, round a a 

V — Sloping, sharp b J>-aabaa = E 

e n — Straight, round a a 

e ro — All "nulls," too few to form a letter. 



In an earlier paragraph mention was made of the "slope" of the 
letters as a means of distinguishing between the forms. The decipherer 
soon learns that the shape of the letter is not always sufficient in itself 
to enable him to determine the form to which the letter belongs; nor is 
it always possible to judge a single letter apart from its neighbors. In 
the early efforts of Mrs. Elizabeth Wells Gallup, the pioneer student of 
this subject, it was sometimes necessary to pass over doubtful letters. 



11 



leaving their assignment to either form to be accompHshed later, by the 
assistance of the context. This plan, though legitimate, is, of course, 
unscientific, and too much open to adverse criticism to be satisfactory 
as anything more than a temporary expedient. It must be altogether 
eliminated from any permanent system of decipherment. There must 
be devised a method more incontestable which may be relied upon to 
carry us through the difficulties, and to explain the anomalies and appar- 
ent discrepancies as well. 

It is believed that in the scientific use of the quadrant to measure 
the slope of the letters and their angles with the horizontal, a very near 
approach has been made to such a method. The principle is geometrical: 
"go by line and level,'' and '*act upon the square."^ 

First, it should be remembered that roman type means letters that 
stand perpendicular to their base (Fig. 6), whereas italic letters are those 
that slope from, the base-line toward the right (Fig. 7). 



AA(tJ)i 



Figure 6 




Figure 7 

Naturally, then, italics of different fonts (or forms) are likely to show 
their difference chiefly in their slope — as can be seen by Fig. 7 where 
the A and B slope less than the D and E. Now, as a rule the a-ioxva 
letters show an angle of about ten degrees between their chief upright 
lines and the perpendicular, while the Worms show a slope of about fif- 
teen degrees. 

1 The decipherer should equip himself with a small quadrant or projector, a fine 4-inch rule, or some cards 
cut to right angles. 



12 



It happens, also, that in many of the old books the letters are very 
irregularly placed above the level of what seems to be the usual base 
line. In other words, they are, in the language of the printer, "out of 
alignment." Parts of a letter — as in the n and the u of Fig. 8 — or an 
entire letter — as the third i and the second / of Fig. 8 — are above the 
base line used by their neighbor letters. 



Inatvidtial^ 



Figure 8 

This matter of levels however, is but another application of the prin- 
ciple, just described, of slope from the perpendicular. For if a line be 
drawn from the true base line at such a slant as to touch the raised letter 
or the raised part of the letter, it will mark what might be called its false 
base; and a perpendicular then erected on this false base shows that the 
distinguishing difference is still one of slope. This can be seen clearly 
illustrated in Fig. 9. 



^^^k fi/i^ 




Figure 9 



In the first of the two words, "book," the two o's, on the same base, 
are clearly of different slope. In the second of the two words, the slope 
seems to be the same; but the second o is higher than the first (i. e., out 
of alignment), and when the false base is drawn and its perpendicular 
erected, the second o is found to slope thirty-nine degrees, or twelve 
degrees more than the first o, whose slope is twenty-seven degrees. In 
letters like m and ti, which have more than one limb or down-stroke, the 
Z?-form is often one with the last stroke shortened; in i the position of 
the dot may decide the slope; in letters having a "hole" or circle — such 
as <2, h^ d, g, 0, p — a line drawn through this open space is often the best 
means of distinguishing the shape or slope, and hence, also, the "form." 
Tall letters, like b, d, h, k, /, may be classified by the slope and direction 



13 



of the seriphs or fine cross-strokes at the top; in/ and t the cross-strokes 
perform the same useful office. Even in the capitals and in script the 
ruler and its invaluable substitute, the "Templet,"' will spare the deci- 
pherer much eye-strain and uncertainty. In Fig. 10, reproduced for the 
purpose of illustrating some of the differences just pointed out, the dis- 
tinctions actually found have been exaggerated to show their form and 
nature. 







rrrr ^vvy^ m m mm n n ttt 0(jo 

Figure 10 

The only truly scientific and satisfactory method of studying the 
problem of deciphering the Biliteral Cipher is first, thoroughly to grasp the 
principles laid down by Bacon himself; then, when the early and simple books 
have been gone through, and the system has been thoroughly conquered 
up to that point, the student may begin to observe the anomalies, the 
discrepancies, and the stumbling-blocks cast in his way, and to perceive 
that the first simple instructions do not suffice for advanced work. He 
will observe strange marks introduced; fresh devices, apparently grafted 
on to the original stock. Such hints, signs, and landmarks are neither 
to be overlooked nor explained away; rather, by patient collation, and 
indefatigable note-taking, he must find out how to utilize these tiny peb- 
bles dropped in the labyrinth as guides for him to follow. 



^For an illustrated description of this device see "The Keys for Deciphering the Greatest Work of 
Sir Francis Bacon," etc., to be obtained from Riverbank Laboratories, Geneva, Illinois. 

14 



Note: — It may seem disheartening to the student to find that now and then the 
alphabets are reversed, i. e., the <^-form is used for the ^-form and vice versa, perhaps only 
for a few words, or in a short passage, yet enough to put a beginner off the scent. Some- 
times, too, more than one variety of the a-form or ^-form may be introduced — as was 
done in the case of the capitals of a 1623 Paris edition of the De Augmentis. But these are 
but useful obstacles to train the decipherer to unfailing keenness in following the scent, and 
are accepted by the skilful worker as devices to make the cipher more^fFective because safer. 



We know that at least six kinds of cipher have to be found out. Of 
these, so much is known about four or five as to leave Uttle doubt that 
the next generation will be able to unravel their long concealed secrets. 

To beginners it must be said in conclusion that this entrancing work 
**drinks much time," and needs (besides keen eyes, and the kind of genius 
which Michelangelo defined as "endless patience") a free, open, and 
"nimble mind, apt to perceive analogies" — ready to take in a hint or a 
new idea, and capable of putting two and two together — a faculty most 
desirable for all who are engaged in Baconian research. If things turn 
up which cannot be accounted for, or which may uncomfortably dis- 
arrange preconceptions, it is not necessary to lose confidence in ascer- 
tained facts, or to begin to discredit the labors of those who have been 
more successful. Rather, let the difficulties be frankly faced, let pre- 
vious shortcomings be acknowledged and rectified, and the sensible advice 
of old Polonius be followed: 

Now remains 
That we find out the Cause of this Effect, 
Or, rather say, the Cause of this Defect, 
For this EflFect defective comes by Cause. 



The following booklets are recommended to the serious student of this subject, as 
aflFording valuable assistance in the work: "The Greatest Work of Sir Francis Bacon," 
and ''The Keys for Deciphering the Greatest Work of Sir Francis Bacon," which may be 
obtained of Riverbank Laboratories, Geneva, Illinois. 



15 



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